| Submit your comments on this article |
| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| Local Government Weird |
| 2008-06-24 |
| The salt-free diet Scottsdale golf courses have agreed to go on to keep their fairways greener is now being considered for other city water uses, including the household tap. City officials are talking about encouraging residents and businesses to replace water softeners that use table salt, or sodium chloride, with ones that use potassium chloride, said city spokesman Mike Phillips. No specific plan is in place yet, however. While more expensive than sodium chloride systems, potassium chloride won't put salt back into the water supply, Phillips said. Already, 23 Scottsdale-based golf courses have agreed to contribute $22.5 million to remove salt from the effluent, or non-drinkable water they receive from the city to replenish their greens and fairways. If residents and businesses stop using sodium chloride-based water-softening systems, less salt would be going back into sewers and treatment plants that prepare water for use on the links, Phillips said. In addition to this program, the city has independently been researching other methods to compel residents and business owners to switch from sodium-based water softeners to potassium-based ones. Phillips did acknowledge that part of the difficulty in persuading people to make the switch is cost. |
| Posted by:Anonymoose |
| #7 Salty soil stops producing. That's one of the key reasons ancient civilizations collapsed with such regularity. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-06-24 22:39 |
| #6 Colorado River water is full of minerals including salt. That's why they call it "hard" water. It doesn't taste all that great either and a lot of people won't even drink it so they pay for bottled water. Some sensitive people don't like the way their clothes feel if they've been washed in it. Some plants don't like all that salt and get a little brown at the tips of their leaves. If you iron your own shirts you might notice that all those minerals will collect in your iron and stain your shirts. One advantage is that soap rinses off a lot easier with hard water. I always notice that when I travel back East. |
| Posted by: Abu Uluque 2008-06-24 18:02 |
| #5 At a guess, because in the desert the salt builds up quickly in the soil, making it hard to grow vegetation of any kind. Getting it out of the soil is very difficult and expensive, I would imagine, at least more so than keeping it out in the first place. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-06-24 17:58 |
| #4 So, let me understand this... They are softening water before watering the greens? Why? |
| Posted by: 3dc 2008-06-24 16:31 |
| #3 Actually, the problem with Scottsdale isn't Moonbattery. It's money. For example, Scottsdale has almost no anti-smoking laws, because the entertainment industry doesn't want them. And in this case, they don't want salt in the water because it is hurting their golf courses. Scottsdale is a weird town to begin with. It is mostly linear, with a single, long, thin park running through most of it. Its city center is full of incredibly overpriced art galleries, and what used to look like a National Socialist realism civic center (created when they had a city councilman who had been a young SS officer in WWII.) Much of the city is upper middle class and decadent wealthy. There are few minorities and homeless. A lot of the kids there behave like Paris Hilton with guns, and reenact scenes from Naked Lunch at parties. Parts of northern Scottsdale are zoned for horses, typically ultra-expensive Arabians, and they also make big money from specialty hospitals. Scottsdale has "gentleman's clubs", and a "pasty tax". That is, the strippers have to pay a hefty tax on the pasties they wear while performing. So yeah, the evil UFO alien invaders would fit right in. Maybe they could get out alive. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2008-06-24 16:06 |
| #2 Getting these meddlesome moonbats to switch to potassium cyanide in their own water-softeners I'd settle for lithium chloride. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2008-06-24 14:23 |
| #1 Getting these meddlesome moonbats to switch to potassium cyanide in their own water-softeners is too much to hope for, isn't it? |
| Posted by: Atomic Conspiracy 2008-06-24 11:20 |